Battery-powered electronic devices have become a ubiquitous staple of life. Electronic devices, such as smart phones, tablets, laptops, flashlights, keyboards, mice, headphones, and other portable devices are used on a regular basis, and as a result, need to be charged regularly. An attendant result is a demand by users for longer battery life in these devices.
A battery may run into various non-optimal conditions during operation. For example, a battery may be charged to a voltage that is near or above a safe operating condition. Such an over-voltage condition may necessitate the disabling of a charging path for the battery. To accomplish this, battery systems may incorporate a battery controller. The battery controller may include control circuitry that may prevent further charging in such an over-voltage condition. These controllers may provide safety and increase an overall useful life of a battery.
These electronic devices are also becoming smaller. This reduction in form places a premium on space inside these devices. The need to optimally locate and position each component in an electronic device becomes paramount.
In some circumstances, the space inside an electronic device that is available for a battery is not optimal for a single battery. This may be caused by the available space being non-contiguous. It may instead be caused by the available space not easily corresponding to the space consumed by a commercially available battery. For these and other reasons, multiple battery cells may be used in an electronic device.
In an electronic device that may include multiple battery cells, it may particularly be desirable to include a battery controller and related circuitry to prevent or recover from non-optimal conditions, such as the over-voltage conditioned described above.
Thus, what is needed are battery systems that may monitor and control multiple battery cells in electronic devices.